In the news: Callie Crossley

8/11/2017, 6 a.m.

Callie Crossley
Courtesy WGBH

Callie Crossley, host of WGBH’s “Under the Radar” with Callie Crossley and a weekly commentator on WGBH’s Morning Edition, has been appointed to the Board of Trustees at Wellesley College. Crossley, an alumna of Wellesley, graduated in 1973 as an English major. In 2013, Crossley was honored with a Wellesley College Alumnae Achievement Award, which recognizes alumnae who have brought honor to themselves and to the college through their outstanding achievements.

“I have maintained a close relationship with Wellesley both as a journalist and a speaker on campus, and joining the board at this period in the college’s history, with a new president, is truly an honor and a homecoming for me,” said Crossley. “I’m looking forward to serving with President Paula Johnson as she leads Wellesley into the future.”

Crossley was a board member of the Wellesley Centers for Women from 2001 to 2004. On the night of the 2016 presidential election, Crossley reported live from Wellesley’s campus, which is also the alma mater of Democratic candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton.

A native of Memphis, Tennessee, Crossley learned about Wellesley from a family friend and fellow parishioner at her hometown church. The New England school, which at the time had a predominantly white student body, represented a different community than the one in which Crossley had grown up. She arrived to find that she was one of just a handful of black students who had been admitted to the school at the end of the turbulent Civil Rights Movement. The decision to attend paid off, and was instrumental in Crossley launching her career in media as a reporter at a Memphis television station. “When I told the general manager that I’d graduated from Wellesley, he was properly impressed. I know that’s what sealed the deal,” said Crossley. Thus began a decades-long career as an award-winning journalist.

In addition to hosting “Under the Radar,” which features stories not usually covered by traditional media outlets, Crossley appears weekly on WGBH’s “Beat the Press,” examining local and national media coverage, and “Basic Black,” focusing on current events concerning communities of color. She has contributed to national programs including CNN’s “Reliable Sources,” The “PBS NewsHour” and PRI’s “The Takeaway.”